Cannabis And Us

“All eyes are on Canada this coming week as the Senate get set to finally vote on the Cannabis Act after 14 months of discussion, debate, and passing or defeating amendments.

If the bill to make recreational pot legal is passed by the Senators on Thursday, it moves back to the House of Commons (and could even come back to the Senate) before eventual hand-off for royal ascent to become law.”

See HIGH TIME: Senate to finally vote on legalizing recreational weed in CanadaOur household received an invitation from Stats Canada to answer a survey on cannabis, called the National Cannabis Survey. It was a bit weird. They didn’t ask any opinions, just a few statistics and usage, which was nil. It’s hard to see the value of such a survey except to estimate the market for cannabis products in Canada. That’s likely to be way off too because usage will likely be greatly affected by legalization and familiarity, but I guess erroneous information is better than no information. The Bill in Parliament is nearing the final stages of passage for legalization for “recreational use”…

From the summary of the bill:“This enactment enacts the Cannabis Act to provide legal access to cannabis and to control and regulate its production, distribution and sale. The objectives of the Act are to prevent young persons from accessing cannabis, to protect public health and public safety by establishing strict product safety and product quality requirements and to deter criminal activity by imposing serious criminal penalties for those operating outside the legal framework. The Act is also intended to reduce the burden on the criminal justice system in relation to cannabis.”

I don’t have anything against the plant. It has all kinds of industrial and medicinal uses but smoking is disgusting regardless of what is being smoked. Folks smoke hides of moose to turn them into leather. Why anyone would choose to do that to lungs is beyond me. Why anyone wants their mental state altered by drugs is also beyond me. That’s not recreation. That’s defeating the wonderful product of evolution we have between our ears. Then we know that extracts of cannabis can control convulsions in epilepsy etc and help cancer patients endure the treatment which is almost as bad as the disease. So, I’m all for legalizing research and development of valuable products related to cannabis but legalizing distribution for smoking is wrong and stupid. StatsCan didn’t ask us about that…

UPDATE My reading of the bill is that it is so complex that I doubt it will have any effect on illegal production and use of marijuana. It’s very complicated and subject to huge regulatory burdens like “cannabis tracking”… Yes. They intend to track cannabis from cradle to smoker… Then there are many inspections and forfeitures and compensation for things seized and destroyed in error and … I can see the bureaucrats and lawyers making a growth industry of this. So, my prediction is that this will fail utterly in its stated purpose but might actually help drug companies and industries make better use of cannabis. The mass of regulations defined by the bill may take years to develop, publish and approve so don’t hold your breath waiting for legalization to happen. That could be dangerous to your health.

About Robert Pogson

I am a retired teacher in Canada. I taught in the subject areas where I have worked for almost forty years: maths, physics, chemistry and computers. I love hunting, fishing, picking berries and mushrooms, too.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.